The Trabants have names: Egu and Babu. According to the film’s transcript, they cost €200 apiece to buy and €2,000 each to repair. Before the African journey has properly begun, you already have a fair idea of the relationship these travelers are going to have with their cars.
Trabant Goes to Africa follows Dan Přibáň and a small Czech team toward Cape Town in two tiny, two-stroke cars. Their choice of transport gives the journey its humor and its uncertainty. You can understand the destination. You may need longer to understand the confidence.
Trabant Goes to Africa film still, via DAFilms.
Explore all ten expedition documentaries in our viewing guide.
An unlikely pair of expedition vehicles
Journeyman Pictures describes five adventurers traveling without backup vehicles. The Trabants have two cylinders, two-wheel drive and very little clearance. They are simple enough to understand, but taking them across a continent means accepting a long list of things they will struggle to do.
That decision makes you curious. These are cars you might stop to smile at in a parking lot. Give them a faraway destination and suddenly you want to know whether they can get there.
South through Africa
The distributor describes the African journey from Libya toward the Cape of Good Hope. Egypt brings bureaucracy as well as distance; the transcript also follows the travelers through Ethiopia and Botswana on the way south. Desert, cities and rough roads ask different things of the same two small cars.
The scale matters, but the story is easiest to enter through the everyday problem of keeping the trip going. You have to get through the paperwork before you can drive. You have to get the car running before the next stretch can begin. A distant destination depends on dealing with what is immediately in front of you.
The joke has to keep running
The film’s transcript moves between mechanical trouble and the travelers’ determination to continue. Přibáň is identified as leader, driver and mechanic. Cameraman Jan Martin Kozel is among the team recording the undertaking. There is plenty of opportunity for the people making the film to become part of its predicament.
The comedy is built into the commitment. Buying an improbable car for a big trip is a decision you can make at home. Living with it, day after day, is where the story develops. The distance to Cape Town gives every small success somewhere to lead.
Why it belongs on your list
This is an appealing watch for anyone who has delayed a trip while thinking about the vehicle they would rather own. The Trabants make that conversation difficult to sustain for long. Here are people who have picked their cars and gone.
There is satisfaction in following machines with such visible limitations. You know enough about them to appreciate why each stage matters. Give Egu and Babu a little time, and you may find yourself surprisingly invested in whether two cheap yellow cars can reach the bottom of Africa.
How to watch
Journeyman Pictures offers a roughly 56-minute edition for a US$5 one-week streaming rental or US$8.50 download. Check the runtime when comparing editions, as other releases may differ.
Viewing information checked November 8, 2026. Follow the linked viewing page for current availability.
Keep exploring
Keep the friendship and long-distance travel going with Long Way Round, following Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman east from London. Read more in Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s Long Way Round book. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
